Still Here
by Hellsleprechaun
Summary: After being rescued from the safe, Stefan has not been the same. He has nightmares, hallucinations and he doesn't act like the same person anymore. Damon is obsessed with finding a witch to help him while Elena doesn't think it's going to work and nobody has yet bothered to ask Stefan what he thinks.


**I do not own the vampire diaries, it belongs to L.J Smith and the CW.**

**This is set sometime after Stefan gets out of the safe at the bottom of the quarry, I can't help but imagine that after repeatedly drowning for months that a person would be damaged.**

It had been six months since Stefan had been released from the safe in the quarry, where he had been imprisoned for seven months. It had not seemed strange at first that he was quiet, or that he was mumbling nonsense, after all he had been trapped in the dark, stagnant quarry water for months, it made sense that he did not quite seem himself. They were all confident that he would return to normal in the next few weeks yet, months later, Damon, Elena and Jeremy were still occasionally woken by the sounds of him screaming at night, when he would have nightmares of being unable to breathe, of being weighed down in the water unable to swim or call for help, of his lungs filling with cold water. None of them would broach the subject with him in the morning, Damon had tried once and it had resulted in Stefan smashing his cabinet of expensive whiskeys, storming out of the house and leaving his brother to clean the splintered wood, shattered glass and droplets of blood from the floor.

Even that, they had all thought seemed normal. Why wouldn't someone have nightmares about a traumatic event? It did not seem unusual that he didn't want to talk about it. Then the hallucinations had started. It began with small things, Stefan would reference a conversation that he had had with somebody and the other person would have no idea what he was talking about. Or on some occasions, he would have to check with someone else to make sure an event had actually happened and that it was not something that had been dreamed up in his head.

Stefan had not returned to his normal self, it was not uncommon to find him laughing at something that nobody else could understand and that he would refuse to explain when questioned about, worse than that, when he would sit in silence for days on end without reacting to the presence of another person, almost as if he was unaware that they were there. Even on an everyday basis it was difficult to recognise him as being the Stefan they had known for several years.

The four of them sat around the table in the Salvatore Boarding house eating breakfast. Or at least, Jeremy was eating breakfast while the other three drank from mugs filled with blood.

"Can you pass the milk please, Katherine?" Stefan asked with a smile.

Elena smiled back but it was slightly strained. This was not an uncommon occurrence, the first time it had happened they had all been surprised and had waited for Stefan to correct himself, when he didn't they had known that something was definitely wrong. At this point, Elena would answer to either her own name or that of her doppelganger from him without so much as a start of surprise.

"Thank you."

"Ew, Stefan, what are you doing?" Damon asked with a grimace, as his brother began pouring the milk into his cup of blood and stirring it with a teaspoon.

"What? It tastes nice, try some." He suggested, tipping the mug of pink liquid towards the other man who refused with a shake of his head. They had grown used to Stefan behaving strangely, such as the time Jeremy had come downstairs one morning to find him writing random numbers across one of the living room walls in sharpie. When asked about it later, he couldn't remember why he had done it but at the time he had assured Jeremy that it was of monumental importance that he did.

"So what's everybody doing today?" Elena asked brightly.

"I'm going to see another witch, which should be just _delightful_." Damon said, pulling a face of distaste. The last few he'd visited had not been terribly helpful and had made his head feel like it was going to explode when he had _politely suggested _that they make themselves more useful or lose every drop of blood in their veins.

"I'm meeting Matt at the grill." Jeremy shared, to break the tense moment that passed between Damon and his sister. Damon had been visiting witches for months in the hope that they would be able to do something to restore Stefan to himself, so far he had found nothing that could help him.

"Okay, I'll stay here with Stefan then." She smiled happily at the other vampire who sighed.

"I'm 164 years old and I'm not an invalid, I'm perfectly capable of staying at home by myself." He didn't sound annoyed, just tired of repeating himself. In moments like these it seemed strange to think that people called him crazy and acted as though he had to be taken care of.

Damon looked as though he was trying not to grimace, he didn't like leaving his brother anywhere by himself anymore, or letting him leave the house by himself. This sometimes bothered Stefan, which was why Jeremy was often inclined to turn a blind eye to Stefan slipping out of the house through his bedroom window and returning home before either Damon or Elena could find out he'd been gone.

"I don't have anywhere to be today and spending the day together will be fun." Elena quickly intervened, before an argument could break out between the brothers.

Stefan gave her a long sceptical look, "you're not a very good liar, Katherine."

/

Damon stalked irritably out of the dark, dusty occult shop where he'd met with the witch.

_Useless, just like the last one, _he thought furiously. What was the point in them even being able to perform magic if they couldn't do something so simple with it? If Bonnie were still alive he was sure the little witch would have come up with something. Hell, sometimes he even wished that the originals were still in town so that they could compel Stefan to forget what had happened to him, so that he'd actually be able to remember Elena's name and he wouldn't keep mistaking Jeremy for the illegitimate son their father had sired. He wouldn't ask Damon if the conversation he'd had with Lexi last night had actually happened and Damon wouldn't have to choose between telling him that his best friend had died and that he had killed her or lying and telling Stefan that she had dropped by to see him last night. He'd chosen to lie every time, whether because he didn't want Stefan to remember one of the reasons he had to hate him or because he wanted to allow his brother to think that his best friend was still around, even he himself wasn't sure.

When he had first dragged Stefan out of the safe he had refused to even think that he might be dead, even though he'd looked like a corpse, and for the first few weeks of Stefan's return he had refused to acknowledge that anything was wrong with him despite everybody else trying to draw his attention to it. He had seen Stefan come back from being the ripper, from trying to kill himself and from being compelled to act as Klaus's slave, he had refused to accept that Stefan was not coming back from this.

He got into his car and slammed the door shut violently behind him before starting the car and breaking the speed limit all the way home.

"How did it go?" Elena appeared as soon as he walked through the door, he closed it behind him before answering.

"Same as all the others, either she won't help or can't help, I can never quite decide."

Elena nodded sympathetically but didn't exactly seem surprised. He knew it was unfair but he felt a flare of annoyance about this and, when she tried to take his hand in hers, he shrugged her off and, ignoring the hurt expression on her face, carried on walking into the house and upstairs.

Stefan's bedroom door was open when he reached the hallway so he wandered in where he found Stefan sitting on the wooden floor of the room. His brows were furrowed and his head was tilted slightly to the side, his concentration fixed upon the house of cards he was building.

"She loves you, you know." He informed his older brother without looking up.

"What?" He asked, although he was sure that he knew what he was talking about. Judging by the exasperated glare Stefan threw his way, he also knew that Damon understood exactly who he meant.

"You need to stop obsessing over finding witches and get on with your life. I know we're all vampires so technically the two of you have forever but still, you shouldn't take her for granted- she's a great girl." It was strange to hear Stefan talk about Elena as if she was a person he hardly knew, rather than somebody he had spent two years of his life in love with. Damon wondered if Stefan ever remembered this.

"I'm glad you're so grateful for all the effort I've made to try and stop you being a crazy person." He stated with heavy sarcasm.

Stefan continued to carefully place his cards for a moment before answering, "I appreciate that you've been trying but I wish you wouldn't."

"Why?" Damon felt like there was a lead weight in his stomach, it had never occurred to him that Stefan didn't want to go back to normal.

"I don't want to be him again, he was so sad. I don't want to have to wake up some days and wish I hadn't and I don't want to have to hate myself like he did." He replied thoughtfully. At times like this Damon could almost forget that Stefan had lost his mind.

He watched Stefan for a minute and considered. He could not remember the last time Stefan had seemed so carefree, had smiled as much as current Stefan did. This Stefan was able to laugh in a way that the other hadn't, he wasn't sickened by himself and his nature.

"I know it's hard for you." Stefan continued, "I know that you miss your brother… me I guess, the way I was before but I'm still here, sort of." He said with a small, embarrassed smile.

Damon smiled back tentatively.

"I might call Lexi." The younger vampire suddenly decided.

"You can't, she's on vacation in Europe, remember?" He quickly recalled the last lie he'd told his brother about the dead woman's whereabouts.

Stefan remained silent for a beat, "she's dead, isn't she?" He asked hesitantly, lifting his gaze to meet his brother's eyes.

"Yeah." He didn't know what else to say and waited for his brother's reaction. He was surprised to note that there were no tears, no anger just a calm acceptance.

As though he'd read his mind, Stefan explained "I think I knew that, or a part of me at least. I just didn't want to accept it." There was a brief pause but then Stefan recovered himself and grinned at Damon, "so, to get back to my original point, go back downstairs and apologise to Elena for being such a huge douche."

Damon clapped his brother on the shoulder and, with a smirk, flicked one of the cards, causing the whole house to collapse.

He walked from the room followed by a reluctantly amused shout of "you suck! I'm never giving you helpful advice again."

Downstairs Elena smiled as Damon wrapped his arms around her from behind and rested his head on her shoulder. "Sorry for being an ass." he apologised casually.

She rolled her eyes, "that's alright, I'm used to it and I'm sure you'll find some way to make it up to me," she teased with a giggle.

**The end.**

**I'm not really sure how happy I am with this but I have wanted to write crazy Stefan for a while. I did include a little hope spot at the end with him remembering that Lexi had died and calling Elena by the correct name just because I couldn't stand to let it get depressing.**

**I know that Stefan was OOC but to be fair I was writing him as suffering from some kind of trauma after being trapped in the safe.**

**A (slightly sadistic?) part of me would like to see Stefan behaving a bit strangely or erratically after getting out of the safe, just because it would be a bit different and I don't think that anyone could go through that and be completely fine afterwards.**

**Please review.**


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